


A work in progress

by sickofsora



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, autistic riku, basically it's all about riku, fem riku
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 16:17:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4752857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sickofsora/pseuds/sickofsora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A few things to note:<br/>This takes place during the canon of KH, right after KH2 when they all come home. But instead of only being home for a little while, they're home for months.<br/>Riku is autistic in this. If that bothers you I'd have to ask you to explore just why, and also not to read this.<br/>There isn't anything ship-wise just yet, but I'm SoRiKai leaning so in the future there may be some of that.<br/>Other than that, please enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote>





	A work in progress

**Author's Note:**

> A few things to note:  
> This takes place during the canon of KH, right after KH2 when they all come home. But instead of only being home for a little while, they're home for months.  
> Riku is autistic in this. If that bothers you I'd have to ask you to explore just why, and also not to read this.  
> There isn't anything ship-wise just yet, but I'm SoRiKai leaning so in the future there may be some of that.  
> Other than that, please enjoy!

It started off real simple. He pinned his hair up more often, not just when he was sparring, not just for convenience. When his bangs got longer he pinned them out of the way, at first with simple and very hard to find white bobby pins, but then he tried black bobbies. Crossing them, doubling them. Mimicking the simple styles he’d seen the girls at school do. It was harmless enough, none of his friends noticed or said anything but his father pulled him aside and asked if he knew he looked like a girl.

Riku feigned innocence, _of course_ he had no idea. It wasn’t on purpose. He kept with it, to his father’s dismay, but his mother assured him it was nothing to worry about. Just a fad the kids are doing or something. She’d live to regret defending him, she’ll tell him later, many months down the line. 

Right now, Riku’s just glad his father’s stopped huffing about it every time he comes down for breakfast.

\--

A few weeks later, he notices Selphie urging Kairi to try something, some product. He’s interested, partially because makeup is banned at school and partially because he wants to know what it is, because it never looks like Selphie has on makeup.

She blots some on the back of Kairi’s hand and helps her dot it onto her skin, and it didn’t look like it’d do much but afterwards her skin looks markedly clearer. Healthier, even, glowing. She thanks Selphie but neglects to try another product. Riku makes a mental note of the packaging and decides to make a trip inland.

As expected, he’s the only guy in the store. It was brightly light, with soft pastel pinks and blues everywhere. It was inviting enough, but definitely still off-putting to someone as new as Riku was.

“Can I help you with something?” A girl, by the looks of it barely any older than him, comes up beside him. He scans the store for the product himself before realizing how hopelessly out of his league he is.

“I’m looking for this thing. It’s like a cream, and it hides things? Like,” he motions to his face, and she thinks for a moment before walking over to a display. God, he’s bad at talking to people, especially girls and women, it’s only helped bolster his ‘mysterious bad boy’ image he hates so much. If only they knew how flustered he got instead of being the cool, calm person they thought they were talking to.

“Was it a BB cream? A lot of high school girls use it, it’s lightweight and offers great coverage and most people don’t know you’re wearing anything,” she gives him what she probably gives every clueless guy who comes in here shopping for their girlfriends or sisters or whatever. But this isn’t for anyone else. Not that she has to know that.

“That’s it,” same bottle and everything, only this was a lot darker than what Selphie squeezed out onto Kairi’s hand. He catches his own complexion in one of the many mirrors and frowns. He’s much paler than Kairi. “Does it come any lighter?”

The girl nods, looking over a few before reaching for the very last bottle. “Here you go, not many girls around here are fair skinned, we usually don’t stock this light but I guess she’s in luck” she smiles at him in a way he immediately recognizes as envy, herself being only a few shades or so darker than Kairi. He nods in thanks and takes the cream to the counter to pay and leave. This is already stressful enough, if anyone from the Islands caught him here there’d be hell to pay in rumors.

“Will that be all for you today, sir?” He nods once, trying to avoid making any more eye contact today.  He stuffs the pale pink bag in his school bag and leaves, ignoring whatever they said to him as he left (probably something about ‘thanks for your patronage’. He didn’t mean to be rude but today had to draw to an end, he still had homework to do and he hadn’t unwound from his day at all).

The ferry home couldn’t have lasted longer. After they’d docked, instead of rushing home Riku took his time. The walk from the docks all the way to his house was a brief respite and he’d planned on using it. He stopped in a convenience store a block or so from his house, same as he usually does, for a fruit sandwich.

While in line, the glossy, shimmery cover of one of the many magazines up front caught his eye. He reached for it, the cover depicting a girl no older than him, in some designer’s clothes, some name he didn’t know. The main article featured this up and coming model, still in high school, which was less than interesting, but she definitely was. He bought it along with his sandwich and left.

Once home he made a dash for his room, his parents spoke but didn’t turn away from their activities, his mother enjoying a book while his father prepared dinner. He didn’t turn to speak to them either, offering greetings as he jogged up the stairs. He set his bag on the floor by his desk and opened it, reaching for the bag, he thought about throwing it away but he’s sure his mother would find it, ask who he was buying things for, which would get his father involved again and he really didn’t want either of them asking about this.

 He carried out his after school routine as usual, shower, snack, homework, dinner, some reading or maybe TV, and then sleep.

Today’s reading, some unknown girl’s rags to riches story. Riku had to admit, as he read more of the decently written article, that it was an interesting story even though it was nothing like his usual nightly reads. The article itself was shorter than he’d expected, but interlaced with pictures from the shoot she did exclusively for this magazine, apparently. She was cute enough, but Riku couldn’t help but be drawn more to what she was wearing than her herself.

 

And her hair, it was long but not oppressively so. And she had it in this cute braid, ‘fishtail’ according to the photo’s caption. He knew immediately that he had no idea how to even begin to try something like that, so he dog-eared the page and set the magazine inside his bag. Maybe he could ask Kairi or Selphie tomorrow.

Or. Maybe he shouldn’t. How would they react? Kairi probably wouldn’t care, but she wasn’t exactly super girly either so she might not know. Selphie on the other hand, was the reason for Riku’s excursion to one of the only beauty stores on any of Destiny Islands’ islands, but she had a taste for gossip and Riku really didn’t want people talking about him any more than they already were.

He could also just look it up. As a belated birthday present his parents gifted him a personal computer under the guise of ‘homework only’ during the weekdays, but it was neatly 10:30. Both of his parents would be asleep. Besides, how would they know, anyway?

The laptop sits unused on his desk for the most part, he hasn’t felt that much of a need for it except for school projects that absolutely require it. He opens up a browser and types ‘fishtail braid’.

There were tons of results. He wasn’t sure where to look first, but upon scrolling he found some videos and those had always been more helpful to him in the way of learning things. The first ones were too long, girls talking about other videos and things in their life that he didn’t really care about. Riku came across purely tutorial videos soon enough, and after watching one he clicked on another, ‘Ballerina Bun’, ‘Milkmaid Braids’, and even a channel for nothing more than ‘cute girl hairstyles’. He bookmarked the site, making sure to like the videos he liked the best. He’d have a few more things to try later on, when he got more adventurous.

For now, it was simple ponytails, up high and low and the base of his skull. He’d considered simple braids, just down his back, but he was really bad with even brushing all of his own hair. He’d have to enlist some help if he wanted to try the more elaborate styles.

\--

The first time he wore the cream wasn’t until about a week later. He woke up a bit earlier than usual, he wasn’t sure how long it’d take to put it on. He tugged the bag out of his desk and opened the package, reading the instructions carefully.  Apparently he didn’t need much. He squirted a bit on the back of his hand, and it was really, really pale. Riku ignored the implication of him being super, super pale, because he was. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, he’d spent his entire life outside bit he never got darker than he is now. When he did, it was a burn. 

He dabbed copious amounts from the back of his hand onto his cheeks, chin and forehead, thankful he’d thought to pin his bangs up. He smoothed the cream in, it wasn’t entirely pleasant but dried soon enough and he barely felt it at all after that. He looked himself over in the small mirror he’d set up on his desk, the blips of acne as well as the cluster he’d hidden under his bangs was barely visible, he was just as ‘fair’ and ‘lovely’ as ever but he looked better. In his eyes, anyway.

He capped the little tube back and hid it and it’s packaging in his desk drawer and finished getting ready. Today, he wanted to try a messy bun, he’d seen the video and after some coaxing from Kairi he’d gotten a real brush and was able to untangle and unknot his hair. It was a lot easier to manage when he actually managed it, but truth be told it wasn’t that important when everything else was happening.

Riku knew this was different than just putting his hair up. He’d hoped neither of his parents would say anything if he were running late, if he grabbed his lunch and maybe a piece of toast and ran out the door. But he wouldn’t be so lucky.

His father caught him on the way out. Told him they needed to speak. He suddenly remembered before everything happened, back when he was just a regular boy, when he messed up and his father gave him that tone he scoffed at before, but now it caught him off guard. He merely nodded, left for school.

If he were honest, he’d say he didn’t care what people thought about him. He’d say none of that matters, all that matters where his friends, Sora and Kairi didn’t care how he looked, that much was evident, but the slight murmur surrounding him was almost enough to pierce his practiced nonchalance.

Selphie told him how ‘fresh-faced’ he looked today. Kairi complimented his hair. He took their comments silently, just a curt nod or a smile, but really, the dread of afterschool was building in his gut already. He could barely pay attention, he was worried about his eventual talk with his father later that night. Had he found the bag and makeup in his drawer? Did he know what Riku was searching? (that especially made Riku pale, some of his latest inquiries have been less than family friendly, not that he’d gone looking for porn or anything, but all these terms came up and he didn’t know what any of them meant, just that it probably wasn’t something to show his parents.)

As expected, his friends noticed his distracted nature. Usually he was able to supply a few words to the conversation but he was entirely nonverbal during lunch. In fact, he hadn’t spoken all day. He’d hoped he’d snap out of it. Riku hated not being able to speak in front of his father, it was one of the things he still dreaded the most.


End file.
